Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2026 (SSFF & ASIA 2026)

The Academy Awards®-accredited and one of Asia’s largest international short film festivals, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2026 (SSFF & ASIA 2026), will be held at venues across Tokyo as well as online. According to the festival’s official overview, this year’s theme is “Cinema Engineering.” In an age overflowing with video content and driven by algorithmic consumption, the festival aims to reconsider the true value of the “cinematic experience.”

Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2026 (SSFF & ASIA 2026)

Online Grand Theater: May 25 (Mon) – June 30 (Tue)
*Streaming programs vary depending on the period.

Tokyo Venues: May 26 (Tue) – June 9 (Tue)
Award Ceremony: June 10 (Wed)

Official Festival Website

<Film from Israel>

Competition Section:

International Competition

Title: “LOSS”

When her brother suddenly disappears, a nine-year-old girl must survive in a world using the very skills her brother spent his life preparing her for.

Director: Sivan Levy Zakin
Runtime: 14 min 34 sec
Country: Israel
Genre: Drama
Year: 2025
Cast: Gili Weiss, Amit Rahav

*Mature Content
(Works labeled “mature” contain sexual content, violence, or other mature themes.)

Awards & Nominations
HollyShorts Film Festival (USA)
Newport Beach Film Festival (USA)
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2026 (Japan)

Sivan Levy Zakin (Director)
Sivan Levy Zakin is an Israeli screenwriter and director whose work explores grief, queer girlhood, and the quiet violence embedded within belonging. Her short films “Cherchez la Femme” and “Dina & Noel” premiered at the Berlinale. She is also a recipient of the Israeli Academy Award for Best Actress, and writes, directs, and composes music for her own works.

Recommendation by the Festival

The film tells an intimate story from a child's point of view, without explaining the world around her. We experience everything through her body: running, fighting, swimming, breathing. The desert landscape becomes an emotional space where strength, fear, and tenderness exist at the same time. Goni is a girl in a world that was not built for her. She is expected to be tough, but not in the way she chooses. She is expected to belong, but on terms she never agreed to. Her brother is the only one who meets her exactly as she is. When he is gone, she is left with something harder: the moment a girl becomes aware of herself as a girl. The moment she understands that the world will ask things of her that it does not ask of others, and that she must decide, alone, what kind of strength she wants to carry. The most attractive point of the film is this mixture of physicality and emotional vulnerability. It is a small story, but it touches something universal: the loss of the one person who saw you completely, and the silence they leave behind.

Screening Information
Please check the festival’s official website for reservations, tickets, and streaming information.

Screening Date:
Thursday, June 4, 3:10 PM – 5:00 PM

Venue: Euro Live (1-5 Maruyamacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo)

Online Screening (Online Grand Theater)
June 11 (Thu) – June 30 (Tue)